Toys ‘R’ Us Brings Temporary Foreign Workers to U.S. to Move Jobs Overseas - The New York Times: "In most cases when American workers lost jobs, the positions have been in technology, with employers arguing there are shortages of Americans with the most advanced skills. But in recent years, many jobs that American workers lost have been in accounting and back-office administration — although there is no shortage of Americans qualified to do that kind of work.
The core purpose of the temporary work visas is to help American companies compete in the global economy. “If employers are able to hire the key people, they can keep jobs in the U.S. and create new jobs here,” said Lynn Shotwell, executive director of the Council for Global Immigration, which lobbies Congress for more visas for highly skilled foreign workers.
Outsourcing firms, and the companies hiring them, say they are careful not to violate any laws. But some experts argue the intent of the visas is being thwarted.
“At the very least, those are violations of the spirit of the law,” said Christine Brigagliano, a lawyer in San Francisco with extensive experience advising American companies on obtaining visas. “Those contractors are signing on the bottom line, saying we will not undercut the wages and working conditions of Americans. But, in fact, they are.”
The companies see it differently.
Kathleen Waugh, a spokeswoman for Toys “R” Us, said the staff reduction there was part of “designing a streamlined, more efficient global organization to make it fit for growth.” She said the contractors were required to comply with “any and all immigration laws.” The outsourcing, she noted, “resulted in significant cost savings.”
William Werfelman, a vice president and spokesman at New York Life, said the outsourcing was part of a transformation of its technology systems that would soon result in more jobs in the United States. “Our decisions are centered on keeping the company competitive, keeping it in the United States, keeping it growing,” he said.
The federal government does not track how often American workers are displaced by workers with temporary visas, but this year, employees at a variety of companies report losing jobs to foreign workers. For example, at Cengage Learning, an educational publisher, about 30 accountants in Ohio and Kentucky were laid off on Sept. 11, after they spent five months training Indian workers from Cognizant, another outsourcing giant. The temporary workers and the jobs went back to India.
A Cengage spokeswoman, Susan M. Aspey, said the company needed to install higher-grade accounting systems. “To do this quickly and efficiently,” she said, Cengage sought support from Cognizant. Employees who were laid off were given “fair severance packages commensurate with their years of service,” she said.
Temporary H-1B visas are limited to 85,000 each year. In the last five years, federal records show, most of the companies that received the largest share of H-1B visas have been global outsourcing firms, including TCS; Infosys, another large Indian company; Cognizant, which is based in the United States; and Accenture, a consulting operation incorporated in Ireland."
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The core purpose of the temporary work visas is to help American companies compete in the global economy. “If employers are able to hire the key people, they can keep jobs in the U.S. and create new jobs here,” said Lynn Shotwell, executive director of the Council for Global Immigration, which lobbies Congress for more visas for highly skilled foreign workers.
Outsourcing firms, and the companies hiring them, say they are careful not to violate any laws. But some experts argue the intent of the visas is being thwarted.
“At the very least, those are violations of the spirit of the law,” said Christine Brigagliano, a lawyer in San Francisco with extensive experience advising American companies on obtaining visas. “Those contractors are signing on the bottom line, saying we will not undercut the wages and working conditions of Americans. But, in fact, they are.”
The companies see it differently.
Kathleen Waugh, a spokeswoman for Toys “R” Us, said the staff reduction there was part of “designing a streamlined, more efficient global organization to make it fit for growth.” She said the contractors were required to comply with “any and all immigration laws.” The outsourcing, she noted, “resulted in significant cost savings.”
William Werfelman, a vice president and spokesman at New York Life, said the outsourcing was part of a transformation of its technology systems that would soon result in more jobs in the United States. “Our decisions are centered on keeping the company competitive, keeping it in the United States, keeping it growing,” he said.
The federal government does not track how often American workers are displaced by workers with temporary visas, but this year, employees at a variety of companies report losing jobs to foreign workers. For example, at Cengage Learning, an educational publisher, about 30 accountants in Ohio and Kentucky were laid off on Sept. 11, after they spent five months training Indian workers from Cognizant, another outsourcing giant. The temporary workers and the jobs went back to India.
A Cengage spokeswoman, Susan M. Aspey, said the company needed to install higher-grade accounting systems. “To do this quickly and efficiently,” she said, Cengage sought support from Cognizant. Employees who were laid off were given “fair severance packages commensurate with their years of service,” she said.
Temporary H-1B visas are limited to 85,000 each year. In the last five years, federal records show, most of the companies that received the largest share of H-1B visas have been global outsourcing firms, including TCS; Infosys, another large Indian company; Cognizant, which is based in the United States; and Accenture, a consulting operation incorporated in Ireland."
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